


Devil's Share

by malchanceux



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Also Reese is a total bad ass, Alternate Ending, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, The Devil's Share, canon character death, episode coda, ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-27
Updated: 2013-11-27
Packaged: 2018-01-02 19:39:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1060791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malchanceux/pseuds/malchanceux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alternate ending to "The Devil's Share".</p>
<p>Leaving a trail of bodies in his wake, Reese finally get's to Simmons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Devil's Share

**Author's Note:**

> Really quick splurge I wrote while having a fit of feels over this episode. Not beta'd, written in two hours maximum, and I'm pretty sure I cried like twice while trying to wrap it up.
> 
> What a great episode. :'D It hurt so good.

            “You gonna kill me?” Simmons yells, hoarse, trying to sit up off the hard concrete with his one good arm. His face is a mess of bruised and swollen flesh, tears and blood and spit mixing into a disgusting cocktail John was all too familiar with, _“Fucking kill me already!_ Quit screwing around. Make your cop friend _proud_.”

            “She wouldn’t have wanted this,” Reese says deceptively calm. And it’s true. He knows it’s true. He won’t delude himself and smear her memory because of his own personal vendetta. Even in her death, leaving her son behind, Carter would have wanted Simmons brought to justice through the Court of Law. But Carter was dead, and this wasn’t about her, “She was a good person. A good cop.”

            Simmons spit out a tooth followed by a glob of blood. He sneered, “Look where that got her.”

            A well placed kick in the ribs had Simmons curled up in the fetal position again, groaning as the knee-jerk instinct to protect himself jarred his broken arm. John hadn’t exactly been gentle since finally catching up with the dirty cop.

            “I should have killed you sooner, I should have killed your _boss_ sooner. But I stayed my hand, and it cost me my partner,” Reese pulled his gun out of his pocket, the grip sticky with drying blood. He’d had the sense to keep it out of hand when it wasn’t in definite need to keep it clean and in working condition.

            “Yeah well,” Simmons is all but moaning now, but he holds on to his sarcasm like an old, dying dog a bone, “Shoulda, coulda, woulda. All that just proves is that you won’t kill me now. That’s how you guys work, isn’t it? Leave a trail of kneecapped men in your wake—always conscious of the body count. Boss has you on a pretty tight leash, doesn’t he?”

            “Apparently not as tight as it used to be,” a new voice says conversationally, “Or you wouldn’t be here—and our friend wouldn’t be here alone.”

            “Elias,” John greets more like a warning. This is his kill. He holds his gun leveled at Simmons head and stares down Elias and his minion.

            “John,” Elias stuffs his hands in his coat pockets, body relaxed but eyes always so alert. He takes in the mess that is Patrick Simmons before shifting his calculating gaze back to Reese, “As much as I hate to agree with such garbage, he’s right. I know from experience that this—” he gestures vaguely at John, his gun, and Simmons panting and bleeding on the ground in agony, “—isn’t how you do things. From past experience, I know for a fact this isn’t in your job description.”

            “This isn’t a _job_ ,” John growls, losing the cool composure he’d managed to cling on to all night. The man at Elias’s side—Anthony Marconi—shifts his weight from one foot to the other, anxious.

            “It isn’t, is it?” Elias’s tone goes flat, and it is only now that John sees how blank his facial features are—devoid of the usual easy, neutral façade he was always so diligent to show, “It’s different when it is someone close to you taken away, but I’m sure you already knew that, John. This can’t be the first person you’ve lost, considering your line of work.”

            Reese presses a shaking hand to his abdomen, applying pressure through his jacket in a laughable attempt to keep his insides _inside_. There had been no exit wound and the bullet had not shattered on impact. It took the doctor Finch hired two hours to remove the bullet and sanitize and stitch the wound, but had taken John under forty-five minutes upon waking to thoroughly rip the stitches out and dirty the bandages while looking for Simmons. It had been a near full twenty-four hours now. Applying pressure to stem the bleeding seemed like a moot point. He let his hand drop.

            “Why are you here, Elias?”

            “The same as you, I suppose. A debt owed to a colleague. Or more accurately, a statement. Don’t touch what doesn’t belong to you. What’s mine is off limits—no matter who you are or what resources you have.”

            “Sounds about right,” John smirks, and turns his attention back to Simmons. He’s back to withering in pain, limbs pulling in on themselves, and breathing labored. There are tears—of pain, not from regret or sadness—as well. Pathetic. John pulls the trigger once, twice, three times before his clip is emptied. He’d put the rest through Quinn earlier that evening.

John puts his gun back in his pocket and stares at Simmons’s lifeless, wreck of a body apathetically. He didn’t feel any better now, after killing Carter’s murderer. But then again, he knew from experience he wouldn’t.

            There’s blood running steadily down his arm, and a wetness on his cheeks. He doesn’t acknowledge either.

            “Our Mr. Finch called me on my way here,” Elias says, stepping closer, “He said you weren’t too far behind Detective Joss if you didn’t get to a hospital soon.”

            John wants to scoff, to turn around and walk away, leave Elias and his lackey behind to do with Simmons as they pleased. But now that Simmons is found and dead, now that he has no more objectives, John suddenly feels _everything_. The exhaustion, the blood loss, the searing pain—he had been running on pure determination, but now he felt as if at any moment he’d drop.

            He wonders how angry Harold must be with him right now. No, not angry— _disappointed._ He can imagine the older man’s shoulders more tense than usual, eyes sad, brow furrowed—mouth a thin, pensive line. He’d convey his displeasure through subtle reprimands and a cold shoulder. Finch knew how to get under John’s skin with his silence—with what was left unsaid. But Reese would take it, and gladly. Because it just meant Harold was still there, still breathing, still _alive_ to be disappointed with John.

            He felt as though he’d give anything for Joss to be disappointed with him just one more time.

            His world is dark and smudged around the edges, but he can see the cement ground rushing up to greet him. He shuts his eyes and braces himself for what will surely be a broken nose and a busted face. Instead, when he opens his eyes again, he’s been laid on his back—Reese feels the lack of crushed bone and sticky blood at his nose, cheek bones, and forehead. A hand presses at his neck, his pulse point, and voices echo from somewhere over his head. He thinks Finch might be one of them.

            “Pulse is steady, but weak,” Marconi says from somewhere close, too close.

            “Thank you,” Finch sounds worried and elated by the news, “I have a doctor on standby. He should be… alright, until then.”

            “I’ve got’em,” Shaw’s arm wraps around his shoulder and pulls his over hers. She lifts him with a breathy grunt—he’s mostly dead weight, though he tries to help, “One foot in front of the other, big guy.”

            “Thank you again, Elias. When he killed Quinn, I wasn’t sure how we were going to find Simmons’s exit point.”

            “No thank you necessary. This was personal. I don’t think Joss liked me much but… I liked her plenty enough. If John hadn’t killed Simmons, I would have.”

            Finch sighs, and Reese knows that sigh. It’s the same one he’d give him when John’d leave guns lying around the library—or when he’d suggest letting two hostile parties take care of each other. He was disappointed, exasperated—he was also tired and frustrated, sad. But he was alive. He was alive and Carter wasn’t because of scum like Patrick Simmons.

            Reese could live with Harold’s disappointment.

**Author's Note:**

> I'll probably re-write and fix this up when I have the time. But for now, I have papers to write and finals to study for. Joy.


End file.
